by Ivy Asher
“Good to know, when I get some, I’ll remember that,” I chirp as I push away from him.
He groans. “So we’re back to that again? You wake up naked and needy in our tent and still want to pretend like we mean nothing?”
“Needy?” I object, hanging on to the only part of his statement that I can disagree with.
Ryn taps the side of his nose. “Yes, very needy,” he retorts.
Treno chuckles, and I don’t miss the deep inhale he takes.
“Since when are all of you friends?” I ask in an effort to distract them from picking out the scent of my apparent needy vagina from the air.
“Since we gained a common enemy,” Zeph states.
“And a common goal,” Treno adds, his eyes fixed on me intently.
I’d aw at the adorable way they just finished each other’s sentence, but I’m pretty sure Pigeon is awake and pumping me with hormones right now, which means I need to get the fuck out of here. I feel her chuff in amusement inside of me, and I swear I’m going to pluck out all of her feathers with tweezers just as soon as I get a chance.
“Fuck, that reminds me,” I exclaim. “I think I know how to break the Vow,” I tell them, and all hints of dirty thoughts and lust filled fantasies disappear from their eyes, and each of them gets very serious.
“How?” Ryn asks, stepping toward me, his features hopeful.
“Memories have been slowly coming back to me since I woke up in the Eyrie. I think most of them were blocked the way my magic was. But I remembered something my dad taught me when I was younger. It’s the key,” I admit, relief and exhilaration washing through me.
“Cum on a tree sprite, that’s it then. We have what we need to win,” Ryn crows, picking me up and swinging me around excitedly.
I can’t help but giggle and hold onto him as my world swirls and blurs.
“Cree will need at least another week to get all of her fighters armed, armored, and organized,” Zeph states.
“And how exactly are we planning on getting to the Hidden without getting picked off by Lazza and his men?” Treno asks.
Ryn sets me down, and I turn in his arms. “I think Wekun can help us with that,” I answer. “I’m not sure how many people he can take at one time, but he should be able to portal us to where we need to go.”
The three of them all growl in unison, and Treno mumbles, “Fucking Ouphe.”
I would congratulate him on his excellent use of my swear word, but using it in reference to Wekun overrides my pride.
“You three really need to let go of the Wekun hate. He’s helped us every chance he could. We would have been fucked without him,” I scold.
“He took you away, flower, and then tried to sever our bond. That’s not helpful, that’s sabotage,” Treno argues.
“You three were already sabotaging everything just fine on your own, that wasn’t on Wekun. He was just doing what I asked him to do. I’m not saying that you need to be besties with him, but you could be kinder. At least make an effort to be mildly respectful, because we need to figure out what all of these new marks do, and he’s our best bet for accomplishing that quickly,” I point out.
They don’t look convinced.
“We don’t have much time, and we need to be as ready as we can for when it’s time to end the fighting once and for all.” I look over at Zeph. “Last night was a perfect example of why we need to make sure we have some control over these abilities before we go into battle.”
He looks away in thought for a moment and then fixes his intense stare back on me. “Does our learning how to use these abilities mean that we’ll be keeping them?” he asks pointedly. “Are you going to try to sever our bonds again?” Zeph asks, watching me from under his lashes.
I’m surprised by the bluntness of his question, but it’s Zeph, so really I shouldn’t be. My face heats with a blush, and I’m not sure exactly what to say.
Do I still want that?
My thoughts and feelings are a chaotic jumble. When I asked Wekun to sever the bonds, I had no doubt that it was the best choice for everyone involved, but I can’t deny that things have changed. There’s no clarity in what I should or shouldn’t do right now. I’m not even sure if this other Bond Weaver will even be able to help, so really all of this could be a moot point.
I sigh.
I’m glad that things aren’t so awful with these three at the moment. They are making an effort, and I won’t turn a blind eye to that, but I don’t know what the future holds. I’m trying to accept a life here, but if I’m being honest, I was only doing that because I felt I had no choice otherwise. I know I can go home now, when all is said and done, and I can’t pretend that I don’t want that still. I don’t know what the right move is yet.
“I think all of us should be focusing on breaking the Vow and winning this war. We can figure the rest out later,” I tell him evasively.
Zeph’s eyes narrow slightly, but he doesn’t press for more or demand that I make a choice right then and there. He just studies me for a beat and then nods his head once.
“We have a lot to prepare for, and Falon’s right, training with these runes needs to be at the top of our priority list,” Ryn agrees.
I pretend like I don’t hear the despondency in his tone and that its presence doesn’t make my heart ache. I don’t want to piss on his ice cream, but I don’t know what to do. We’ve all shown our worst sides, and I can’t pretend that I haven’t seen them. What happens if things go back to that? What happens if…
I turn away from that niggling thought. I remember what my dad taught me about breaking the magic in a rune, and I know I can do that against the Vow. I won’t need to die.
“Okay, let’s go get our badass on,” I chirp, dismissing the foreboding feeling that just crept into my chest. I give a clap and then head for the tent exit again.
“Little sparrow,” Zeph calls out, his tone sensual and amused.
“Yeah?” I ask, a little breathier than I’d like.
“You’re still bare,” he points out, and I look down to see that, yep, I’m still naked.
“Right,” I snap-finger gun point at him, because that’s something normal people do.
Everyone’s mouths twitch like they’re all trying to hold back a smile.
“Who has a shirt I can borrow?” I ask sheepishly.
Treno plucks his from the end of his bed and tosses it to me. I catch it and pull it on, totally not sighing at the way it smells, because that would be fucking creepy.
“Alrighty then, I’ll just see you boys out on the training field later,” I announce, way too cheery, and then what do I do...I fucking salute them again.
I rush out the tent, ignoring the chuckles that erupt as I do, and stare up at the brightening sky for a moment while I sigh and face palm.
Smooth, Falon. Real fucking smooth.
18
“How about now?” I ask, sounding a little constipated, but I’m concentrating so hard there’s nothing I can really do about that.
“That’s it!” Wekun cheers like a proud parent.
I smile and hoot out my excitement. “Finally!” I screech and do a little dance that involves some twerking followed by aggressive hip thrusting. For three days now, I’ve been working on this sequence of runes on my back so I can make myself disappear, and this is the first time I’ve actually completely done it. I’ve made myself fade or blend, but they’ve still been able to spot the outline of me, but now...I’m fucking invisible.
I look over at the guys, but instead of finding their wandering eyes as they search to locate my perfectly non-existent ass, they’re all looking right at me. Ryn snickers a little, and I narrow a glare on Wekun.
“What the hell? You said I had it,” I accuse.
“Well, you did, and then you…didn’t,” he admits on a chuckle that he immediately tries to cover up.
I groan. “So that whole ‘dance like no one is watching’ thing…”
“Yeah, we were all watching,�
� he admits.
“I liked it,” Ryn offers with a smile.
“As you should,” I tell him, releasing the power I’m feeding into the runes on my back.
I’ve been kicking ass at figuring out how to work the marks on my body, which surprised the shit out of me. Honestly, I think it surprised the shit out of everybody, but apparently unlocking my marks also unlocked my inner ninja, because I’m like super badass.
Okay, the invisible thing is taking some time, but it’s hard to get the exact right sequence of the marks. It’s not at all similar to reading left to right, like I thought. I had to find which rune to start with solely by feel. I’ve quickly had to learn to let my Sentinel magic guide me. It’s required a level of finesse and patience I’m proud of accomplishing, especially amidst the clanging of weapons as the guys sparred and learned to call on my whip swords—as Wekun calls them.
We learned that the weapons come from the garter marks around our thighs, and depending on the sequence of runes that are called, the swords can have a solid blade like a typical long sword does, or the blade can break up into connected sections to become the whip sword.
Zeph and Ryn like the solid blades best, but the whip sword is the shit, in my opinion. Especially against opponents who are bigger than me, like the guys are. It gives me way more of a lethal reach, which I suspect will come in handy when we go head-to-head with the Avowed.
The swoosh blades I discovered while fighting Cree are from Treno’s marks. He calls them claw daggers, and that’s what he prefers to fight with. I’m getting better with those, but I have to be really close to whoever I’m using them against, and I don’t love that.
Okay, I kind of love it when I’m sparring with him, or Zeph and Ryn, but I don’t love the idea of fighting against an attacking stranger that up close and personal. I’m working on getting over that though, because having an aversion to killing someone is not a luxury I can afford here. I’ve developed a plan that I’m just going to pretend that everyone I’m fighting is Loa and hope that helps activate the rage. Then when I get my hands on Loa...she’s going to wish she’d never been born.
Pigeon delivers a steady thrum of satisfaction at the direction of my thoughts, and we both get lost for a moment as we trade ideas back and forth of all the ways we’re going to fuck Loa’s betraying ass up.
Maybe I’m not as squeamish about killing as I thought.
I look over in time to see Zeph slip from the place he was standing and reappear behind Ryn and Treno, ready to take them both out. Ryn feels it and slips away, while Treno calls on his water ability and shoves a ball of water over Zeph’s head. Zeph holds his breath and charges Treno, but Treno disappears and pops up on the other side of the clearing, where we’ve been training for the past four days.
I flick my wrist, and the water bubble over Zeph’s head bursts. He pops up behind Treno, and their blades clang against each other as they fight to gain the upper hand.
“Cheater,” Ryn whispers in my ear, slipping into existence right behind me, and then he twirls and brings his sword down in a deadly arc toward me.
A shield bursts from my arm, protecting me from Ryn’s hit, and I call on a spear from Treno’s rune on my shoulder blades and stab out at Ryn, forcing him to back up while his own shields activate and stop the whip of blades that I send at his other side.
I’m not ambidextrous in life in general, but I’ve discovered when it comes to fighting, I am. I can lead with either my right or left side and use different weapons to attack. I call it my secret sauce because it tasted so damn good when I surprised the shit out of the guys by being able to adapt like that.
Ryn is relentless in his efforts to get a hit in, and we look like Nightcrawler minus the blue smoke as we pop in and out of existence all over the place, striking, evading, attacking, and doing everything we can to take the other person out.
Zeph and Treno join in, which they’ve been doing all day…something about me needing to get used to fighting multiple attackers. I make my whip swords shift into solid blades as they close in on me, and we all become fluid motion, clangs of metal, exploding shields, and gritted teeth. I feign an opening, knowing Zeph will see it and step in to teach me a lesson. I activate my runes so I can slip through space away from them, but Zeph reaches out and grabs me by the neck to stop me.
He grins victoriously at me, which is exactly when I shove a pulse of Sentinel magic out of my center, and everyone goes flying back.
Wekun starts clapping and walking my way as the guys all get back on their feet with smiles on their faces. “That was excellent, Falon. You’re an Ouphe through and through; you’ve taken to this like a duck to water,” he observes and then blinks out of existence mid-step when someone throws a sword through the spot where he just was.
“She’s not an Ouphe,” Zeph growls at Wekun when he pops back into being a couple feet away from me.
Wekun rolls his eyes. “She’s like three-quarters Sentinel, dude,” he lobs at Zeph, annoyed.
“And we forgive her for that, but three-quarters is not Ouphe through and through...dude.”
The ball of water I was just about to chuck at Zeph’s head stops midair as I choke on a laugh instead of riding out my irritation about the “we forgive her for that” part of his comment.
Did he really just say dude?
I crack up, suddenly picturing Zeph, the king of assholes, walking around dude-ing and bro-ing people, while tossing out complex handshakes as he man-hugs strangers, and heaven forbid...smiles. I finish off my amusing little fantasy by placing him in a Hawaiian t-shirt right in the middle of the feminine products aisle at the grocery store, because that image feels like the pièce de résistance to this whole hilarious imaginary scenario.
Ryn bats my floating bubble of water away, and it ricochets off Treno’s shield and slams right back into him, bursting all over his face. I pause my chuckling for exactly two milliseconds as I take in that water dripping down his face, and then I lose it even harder.
I didn’t even know the water balls could do that.
I did hear Treno tell Zeph that he can kill people by pulling all the water out of their body or doing the opposite and filling their lungs from the inside out if there’s a water source close enough, so really I shouldn’t be surprised that we can make water balls behave like bouncy water balloons.
Ryn walks over as I’m bent at the waist, cackling like a Sanderson sister, picks me up, and wipes his wet face and hair all over my neck and chest. I squeal and try to push away from him, but he’s such a strong fucker there’s no way I’m getting away unless I stab him.
“That’s better,” he growls playfully, nipping at my neck just as someone lands in the clearing and starts to jog over to us.
I recognize one of the healer brothers, and I snicker when Treno, Ryn, and Zeph all release a low warning growl as the lighter blond brother gets closer.
I give Pigeon a look. “That’s on you, you know,” I tell her as the possessive aggression kicks up a notch all around me.
Pigeon just fluffs her feathers and breathes deeply, like the scent of their jealousy and claim is her favorite thing to imbibe. I swear, if she had eyebrows, she’d be wagging them at me right now.
“Cree is ready to go over tactics,” the large gryphon announces, the summons clear. “The Ouphe is to come as well to discuss transport,” he adds, looking over at Wekun.
“He has a name,” I scold the healer brother, realizing that I have no idea what his name is...oops. “The one that slips closest to the tent, without going inside, wins,” I challenge, calling on my runes that allow me to teleport around.
“Not him,” the healer brother stops us, gesturing to Treno.
Confusion prickles through me, and I let the magic I’m calling pool back into my center. “Why?”
“Because he’s Avowed,” the gryphon answers simply.
Incredulity flashes through me. Is he serious? I open my mouth to tell the gryphon off, but Ryn cuts me off.
I just barely stop myself from adding a “yeah” like some kid backing up their friend in a neighborhood dispute.
The healer gryphon clearly doesn’t like this response. He tenses and seems to debate what to do, not wanting to go against his leader, Cree, but also not overly keen to piss us off either.
“It’s fine, I’ll just stay and work some more,” Treno announces, clearly trying to diffuse the situation. His declaration is even and casual, but I see a glint of frustration in his mismatched eyes.
“I could use some more work too,” I announce, waving away the questioning looks that Ryn and Wekun give me. “You guys go work out all the boring logistics and then come fill us in when it’s all sorted.”
I give the healer gryphon a pointed look. He may think that cutting Treno out of these discussions is somehow going to protect the information, but Zeph, Ryn, and Wekun are going to tell us everything anyway, so really Cree is just being an asshole.
“I can stay back too,” Ryn offers.
“It’s fine, you and Zeph know the Hidden and what they can do; I would have just been standing around anyway while you map everything out. And if Cree wants to see Treno as the enemy instead of a valuable resource, that’s her mistake. We’ll be better prepared for what we’re facing than she is,” I add.
Treno gives me a small smile, but I don’t miss the tension still radiating from him. Ryn and Zeph give me a nod, then disappear from where they were standing. Wekun chuckles and grumbles, “Show-offs,” before disappearing himself. The blond healer gryphon takes a moment to realize that he’s been left behind. He then jumps into the air where his wings hurry to help him catch up.
I watch his silhouette get smaller and smaller in the distance before turning to Treno, who still looks upset.
“He’s a dick, don’t let it get to you,” I tell him, reaching out and patting his shoulder somewhat awkwardly before dropping my hand back down to my side.